Good Magic Blazing the Trail

First things first, because this was not just a proxy war. Congratulations, then, to Blazing Sevens (Good Magic) for carving his name on the GI Champagne S. roll of honor, one of the most storied on the American Turf. John and Carla Capek of Rodeo Creek Racing have only owned racehorses for a couple of years, but here they are with the winner of a race once won in three consecutive runnings by Seattle Slew, Alydar and Spectacular Bid. They must be tremendously excited as Chad Brown prepares their colt for the Breeders' Cup, with everything that entails in terms of the Triple Crown trail and a place at stud.

But this race was also notable for a “play within a play”. For the difference between first and second prizes was sufficient to elevate Good Magic past his GI Kentucky Derby nemesis Justify, sire of runner-up Verifying, in a highly competitive race for the first season stallions' championship.

We'll return to that table in due course but–whoever gains the final laurels–Good Magic is first of the cohort to put his name in lights with a Grade I winner. And that's especially important for a young stallion who was himself noted for greater precocity than has tended to be trademarked by his own sire Curlin.

Curiously, the horse that set up Saturday's race through the first three splits (before fading into fourth) happened to be a half-brother to Firenze Fire (Poseidon's Warrior), who early in his colorful career thwarted none other than Good Magic by half a length in the 2017 running. Good Magic then broke his maiden in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, an unprecedented distinction, and continued to progress as a sophomore. His endeavors, either side of running into Justify on the first Saturday in May, included wins in the GII Blue Grass S. and the GI Haskell S. Despite derailing in the Travers, Good Magic retired to Hill 'n' Dale with $2,945,000 banked through nine starts.

Good Magic started out at a fee of $35,000, with the same kind of challenge–or opportunity–as that embraced by Vino Rosso and Known Agenda over the next couple of years: to stake a claim as the premier heir to their sire. In the current general sires' table, the highest earner by Curlin is Keen Ice, no higher than 48th despite the endeavors of Rich Strike. The unequivocal identification of a successor is one of few tasks remaining to Curlin, now approaching the evening of his career at 18, but Good Magic certainly had his three 'P's lined up as he set out: performance as already noted, while pedigree and physique had together seduced a $1-million bid from e Five Racing as a Keeneland September yearling.

Breeders Stonestreet were so reluctant to part with him, even at that price, that they struck a deal to stay aboard as partners. After all, he was by the horse that had made their colors famous, as a dual Horse of the Year, and out of a daughter of one of the first mares bought for the evolving Stonestreet program.

Good Magic's dam Glinda The Good was a dual stakes winner precocious enough to run third in the GII Pocahontas S. She was by Curlin's regular sophomore antagonist, Hard Spun, and one of no fewer than 14 winners–most notably the Grade III winner/Grade I-placed Take The Ribbon (Chaster House)–out of Magical Flash (Miswaki), already 14 years old when acquired for $140,000 at Keeneland's November Sale in 2004.

Magical Flash had been bred by the Californian Turf stalwart Clement L. Hirsch, and indeed shared a dam with Magical Maiden (Lord Avie), the dual Grade I winner whose daughter Miss Houdini (Belong To Me) and granddaughter Ce Ce (Elusive Quality) have both subsequently emulated her as a winner at the elite level for Hirsch's son Bo; not forgetting Ce Ce's aptly-named half-brother Papa Clem (Smart Strike), fourth in the GI Kentucky Derby after winning the GII Arkansas Derby.

Good Magic is one of several projects in which Barbara Banke has had the good sense to collaborate with John Sikura. Together with other shareholders, they have certainly given Good Magic every chance. He covered 306 mares across his first two seasons and held up well against the inevitable slide with 92 in his third. And his first yearlings were positively received in 2021, 94 sold from 110 offered for an average $151,708. (His most expensive yearling, a $775,000 Keeneland September colt, made a promising start when beaten a neck for a powerful partnership of Bob Baffert's patrons at Del Mar last month.)

As an unusually accomplished juvenile, by the standards of his sire, Good Magic's big pitch is that he might combine two-turn Classic quality with some extra commercial dash. His first winner admittedly came no earlier than June, but it's auspicious that Curly Jack has progressed to win the GIII Iroquois S. on his fourth start. Then there was Vegas Magic, who won her first three in California including the GII Sorrento S. And while Grade I level proved beyond her at this stage, that new pinnacle has now been scaled by Blazing Sevens.

Fast tracked from his debut success, Blazing Sevens did make the GI Hopeful S. podium but only at a respectful distance, beaten a dozen lengths by Forte (Violence). Brown remained adamant that he was better than he showed that day and, though alarmed by a similar slop last weekend, was vindicated with a strong-running exhibition that promised still better to come as he stretches out.

Blazing Sevens, bred by Tracy Farmer, is the first runner out of a Warrior's Reward half-sister (dual winner around a mile) to shock GI Jamaica H. winner King David (Hat Trick {Jpn}) besides a couple of other stakes operators. Otherwise it's a fairly thin pedigree so it already reflected well on Good Magic that he could be pinhooked as a $140,000 short yearling (sold to Chestnut Valley Farm through Denali at Keeneland January) to make $225,000 in the select catalogue (Eaton consignment) at Saratoga that summer.

If Blazing Sevens is indeed to thrive through a second turn, Good Magic will presumably be loading plenty of Curlin into the deal as the maternal family has recently been seeded largely by speed brands (Warrior's Reward, Gone West, Storm Bird). The third dam was a half-sister to an Epsom Derby runner-up in Glacial Storm, however, and while that horse was by a profound source of stamina (Arctic Tern), she herself introduces a sturdy distaff influence in Luthier (Fr) and there's actually a chain of stout influences tapering away behind her. If Brown believes this colt to be craving extra distance, then he's going to be right.

Regardless, the next step on his journey promises to be significant in the rookie sires' championship, where every cent looks likely to count. Through Monday, Good Magic held a narrow lead, at $1,521,469, over two others with still bigger debut crops in Justify ($1,468,689) and Bolt d'Oro ($1,460,457). Good Magic has certainly made his big punches count, his three graded stakes winners for now being his only stakes operators of any kind, compared with six and eight respectively for Justify (who also has three graded winners) and Bolt d'Oro (two). These are still very early days, of course, with this top trio so far mustering 15, 16 and 16 winners apiece from 47 (Good Magic, from 119 named foals), 43 (Justify, 137) and as many as 58 (Bolt d'Oro, 142) starters.

Looking at those ratios, the one who has shown least of his hand would appear to be a Triple Crown winner who famously never ran at all as a juvenile and whose prodigious physical prowess might validly require time to develop. Quite striking, then, that Justify came up with a filly to win a 5 1/2-furlong maiden in Ireland as early as May, who has since followed up at Group level. With a fee commensurate with his meteoric track career, Justify obviously faced plenty of pressure to match his name. But the foundations he has laid so far encourage the hope that his flourishing, speed-oriented sire line can balance the slower-maturing influences on his family (such as damsire Ghostzapper, plus Nijinsky top and bottom).

No less auspicious is the genetic profile of Bolt d'Oro. He was a remarkably accomplished juvenile (dual Grade I winner/103 Beyer) for a colt whose parents were respectively by El Prado (Ire) and A.P. Indy, and while his own sophomore career ultimately proved frustrating, he too can be expected to keep building from here. His second crop has been performing particularly well at the sales.

All three frontrunners, then, share a wholesome eligibility to keep building as their stock explores a second turn. In the meantime, however, Good Magic's studmate Army Mule is slipstreaming them with real verve in fourth ($1,362,132) in already fielding 45 of his 91 named foals for 17 winners including two in stakes company. That backs up his excellent sales debut last year, where he converted a $10,000 opening fee to a $91,809 average.

Another to have already fired half his (named) bullets is Sharp Azteca, whose 60 starters have yielded a class-high 22 winners, two at black-type level, for a bank of $1,244,681. And we've previously celebrated the breakout of Girvin, who went to war with 76 named foals, conceived in Florida at $6,000, but has already had three stakes winners from 13 overall (31 starters) for $1,160,669. That has earned him an immediate move to Kentucky and, though he has so far only offered four yearlings from his second crop, one has already made $290,000.

The next two in the table have not yet matched their sales performance but both remain well equipped to overtake some of the faster starters. Mendelssohn sent no fewer than 125 yearlings into the ring last year, processing 100 at $153,611, and 54 starters have so far yielded 16 winners for a bank of $946,423. It's only a matter of time before his cavalry starts to make a few headlines, and he can take heart from the example of City of Light ($886,216).

After his stellar auction debut (67 of 75 sold at an average of $337,698), City of Light–himself a fairly gradual bloom on the track himself–had to wait until July 31 for his first winner. Remarkably, however, three of his eight winners to date (from just 20 launched from 83 named foals) have already won stakes, while another was beaten a neck in the GIII With Anticipation S. With the lovely shape to his pedigree, City of Light will prove a perfect example of why nobody should be too carried away with these early skirmishes. I'm not the only one to think so, either, judging from his lucrative return to the sales through his second crop.

A final nod, for now, goes to Oscar Performance ($766,705) who has started 29 of 70 named foals for 11 winners with three already placed at graded stakes level.

All of these horses tend to be granted a ruthlessly narrow window by the commercial market. If many are initially oversubscribed, it's no more absurd for them to be abandoned so hastily. It can't be stressed enough that commercial breeders are themselves not to blame for such giddy imbalances, which hardly suit the stallion farms either. The fault, if any, rests with those directing ringside expenditure, who lock in a cycle that's hard to break: commercial breeders know that they must offer new sires, and as a result those sires will indeed have their best shot in their first books.

Now is surely way too soon for anybody to be leaping to any definitive conclusions. Inevitably, that won't stop some people prematurely writing off certain of the slower starters. That being so, you can't overstate the satisfaction for those standing the first of the intake to that Grade I breakout. Nonetheless, it remains neck and neck in the wider race, with everything still to play for. And if the stakes sometimes feel somewhat higher than perhaps they should be, that will hardly diminish excitement at several different farms about a sub-plot that could really enliven the closing months of the year.